Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard
40 gallon pot -- "squat" shaped each.
1900 gross Watts equivalent of T5 lights per plant, distributed in multiple fixtures.
1 lb net Nitrogen, 1/4 lb net phosphate, and 1.5 lb net potash per plant per year, divided up into monthly doses and attenuated for younger plants, plus micronutrients. The most cost effective way to achieve this is with a commercial water-soluble product. Small doses of Seaweed extract will help root development in young plants.
Humidity not to exceed 75% unless you are willing to have serious countermeasures for fungi.
Temperature range of 75 F to 85 F year round.
Non-alkaline water.
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About a month ago I consulted for a grower with several 20,000 sq.ft. greenhouses that was converting a few of them to fruits and vegetables. One was for bananas. We concluded that 200 plants would be entirely feasible. There seems to be consensus in the literature that during the onset of bud development and then fruiting, musas will utilize photo energy at an average rate of 1000 W to 1200 W peak. Both of us being engineering/science types, we then back-calculated to units of gross wattage of T5 lighting fixtures -- since many where already installed at the facility. We took into account the distance of the fixtures from the plants, incident angle, and expected humidity. This lead us to the figure of 1900 gross-fixture-Watts per plant. The greenhouses are standard type with 12-foot vertical walls and a hemispherical ceiling. The outer material is 40% opaque and 80% diffuse. The lighting fixtures are placed so that they will block only a minimum of sunlight during daylight hours, and during night-time and darker days can provide light from above and from the sides at 20-degrees off horizontal. The fixtures are regulated by electronic photo-gates so that the number of fixtures on + any available sunlight ~= 1200 Watts incident on the plants during the critical growth stage. For young plants, the threshold is half that.